205380 Pte. William Hedley Worley British Army North Staffordshire Regiment from:Asfordby, Melton Mowbray Hedley Worley, my uncle, he was called up under the Derby scheme 1916, and spent a short time making shell cases at Sharp Bros, Burton on Trent. After a short period of training he was drafted to Ireland to put down the Sir Roger Casement Rebellion. He took part in the seige of Jacob's Biscuit Factory in Sackville Street. Late in 1916 he was drafted to France, captured and spent the rest of the war on a POW camp in Limburg on the Lower Rhine. At this camp Casement, had through German influence, offered a large number of Irishmen their freedom if they would return to Ireland to fight the British. He was stoned from the camp and nearly all of the prisoners remained loyal. Pte Worley developed double pneumonia and was taken to hospital in Cologne. After returning to camp he remained there until the end of the war. The camp was thrown open and the prisoners were allowed to go where they pleased. Only the Red Cross parcels had kept them alive. Their diet was rye bread, potatoes and mangold soup. Hedley, and others who were fit to walk did so, to Metz and from there they went by cattle truck to Nancy. They reached Calais where they were medically examined, reclothed and re-equipped. He arrived home in December 1918. It took him along while to get really fit and went through a period of unsettlement. He married a nurse who during the war was nursing at an RAF hospital in Luton.
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